Along Came Trouble
by a-whisper-to-a-riot
Summary: When Nishi threw himself off a building top, he arrived at a room filled with complete strangers. The last to arrive after him, dressed in a leather-clad outfit, a high-school girl whom was well known amongst his peers. As he learns and grasps for survival, his savior spirals further into madness until she breaches the edge of insanity - Nishi/OC


**Gantz**

_**Along Came Trouble**_

_**Chapter One: It's the Beginning of a Brand New Day**_

* * *

In a split second every feeling was gone. The whirring from the wind brazing past his face, the tickling on his cheeks, the sensation of his foot snapping into two. In a moment's time, he felt nothing.

"_Hey look! Here comes another!"_

The first thing he saw was the black sphere, a large one that gleamed under the bright lighting. After growing accustomed to the unfamiliar lighting and room, he noticed that he felt light. He turned down to his feet and saw that his feet were missing. Where is ankles are supposed to be was a laser projected from the sphere. He wasn't quite sure what to make of this, but it reminded him of the events before, how he threw himself off a building and felt his own legs get crushed after hitting the pavement. In less than a minute, his feet appeared where they were supposed to be and he began to feel them again.

Feeling great confusion, he turned around and saw that he was in a room filled with people that looked to be a random selection. There were middle-aged folk, some young looking adults that could be old enough to be university students (but probably not considering how badly they were dressed), a guy that could have been in the yakuza and other students like himself. None of them looked acquainted with each other, it seems like they were all thrown together randomly without consideration. He turned away from them and for the first time saw the view from the window. They were right next to Tokyo Tower, a place that he was nowhere close to when he jumped.

'_Why aren't I dead?'_

Nishi looked forward again when he heard someone approach him. It was one of the middle-aged men; he gave the younger boy a friendly smile as he reached his hand forward.

"Hello, I'm Kishima Renji," he introduced. "With you there would be nine of us, what's your name?"

It was obvious by how he introduced himself that Renji was the type to take charge. Also the fact that he even bothered asking Nishi for his name; taking a glance behind Renji, he saw that everyone had returned to speaking to each other, completely ignoring their new addition to the group.

Giving Renji a cold look, he ignored the extended hand and walked off to find a spot to sit down. He sat down close to the front, further enough that no one bothered him but close enough for him to overhear what everyone was talking about. It was mostly chattering on theories and conspiracies to why they were brought to this place. A returning phrase seemed to be _'I'm pretty sure I died'_. But apart from that, the rest of their ideas were uninteresting and ridiculous.

From the corner of his eye, he spotted the three other students. The two girls were in high school, he could tell by their uniforms. The other boy was definitely in middle school, and he seemed to have noticed that Nishi was a middle school student as well. The boy gave a friendly wave as he walked over to where Nishi sat.

"Hey, you're a middle-schooler too, aren't you?" he sat down beside the other boy. "I'm Ichiro, nice to meet you."

"… Nishi."

"Nishi, huh?" Ichiro nodded. "… Any ideas on why you think we're here?"

"…"

"I think we're part of a TV show or something," he grinned. "Sounds a bit crazy but I don't actually believe in all that heaven crap."

"Yeah…"

"You're kind of weird, aren't you?"

Here it comes again… Nishi turned away from the boy as he felt the same recurring discomfort in his heart. This wasn't unusual, it was normal that people would shy away from him after getting to speak to him for a bit. He couldn't help but be the way he was.

"Look there's another one coming!"

Nishi turned to the front of the room and saw that the laser from before had returned. He saw that a pair of feet had begun to materialize from the ground, bits of bone and flesh was being scanned out of the sphere at a painfully slow pace. He realized right away that this must have been how he was brought into this room, how they were all brought to this room.

By the time the body has appeared from toe to waist, Nishi had gotten tired of the scanning process and had made out the body as a female's. She had a nice figure too from what he can tell; all the men in the room lightened up noticeably as they waited for the rest of her to show.

Unfortunately for the men, despite her round little butt, narrow waist and long shiny hair that came up to her small back, her chest was lacking and not as large as they expected. She wore a clad-tight black suit that stuck to her body well, and the curves from her legs to waist were mind-blowing, but the large curves stopped at her chest. Her chest was nothing special at all, and this was an immediate let down for some of the men present in the room. For the ones that were still interested, they held their breath as she began to appear from the chin and upwards. Perky red glossed lips, cute little button nose, and perfectly arched eyebrows. She had a face that would have made up for a completely unattractive body if she were to have one.

Nishi recognized her immediately from the moment she opened her fierce blue eyes. Dressed in her skin-tight black outfit that looked very much like a cosplay, it didn't come to him at first, but he recognized her the second she opened her eyes and took in her surroundings. She was the high school girl that all the boys in his class had secretly taken pictures of to jack off to later, and she was the high school girl all the girls would always gossip and gush over. She was from the high school a few blocks away from his, he'd always seen her around when he was walking home; she was always in her uniform that was a teensy bit too short for her long legs and surrounded by a large group of friends that seemed to adore her very existence. If he remembered right, her name was Shiho.

"Nakara?" one of the schoolgirls laughed. "Is that you, Nakara? What's up with that outfit? Some kind of kinky leather cosplay for your ten-year-old boyfriend? I wasn't aware our school idol had such creepy fetishes."

She spared them a single glance without so much as reacting to their provocation. Instead, she turned to the rest of the group, eyeing each one of them with critical eyes. Her eyes softened slightly when she reached the last of the group, which happened to be Ichiro and Nishi.

"Alright, listen up fellas," she murmured, her thick foreign accent showing through. "I'm probably going to be the last one so there isn't much time for me to explain what's-."

"I'm sorry, but what on Earth are you-."

"Please, ossan!" she pushed a long strand of hair behind her ear. "Questions later; let me speak first. As I said, we don't have much time."

Renji would have spoken about her poor manners if it weren't for that sweet little curved smile that played on her glossy lips. He swallowed uneasily under her heavy gaze and sat back down.

"Alright!" she clapped her hands and walked over to the sphere. She ran a hand down the sleek curved surface before speaking again. "This ball here is Gantz. If you were doubting your own death before then let me confirm this for you: We're all dead and we belong to Gantz now!"

Everyone in the room grew deadly silent. No one knew how to react to what they've just been told. This whole time, all they've done was make assumptions on what they think would happen and there wasn't one person that even had the slightest clue to why they were here. But now this high school girl shows up from out of the blue, dressed in a strange suit and sprouting nonsense about them belonging to a large black orb.

"What the hell are you on about, Nakara?"

It was the high school girl again. Everyone turned to her and back at Shiho, all expecting her to reply. Shiho stared the girl down, her cold gaze sent shivers down the girl's spine. At this point, Nishi knew that Nakara Shiho wasn't one to be trifled with.

"You can see yourself as fortunate people that have been given a second chance after death to reclaim your lives, but it's no easy process," she chose to ignore the girl's comment. "It only gets harder from here."

"I'm sorry, but I really don't understand," Renji stood up again. "Why are we here? Why didn't we die properly? Why have we been-."

"Shut up, ossan!"

Nishi watched as one of the younger adults stood up and shoved Renji out of the way. He walked straight up to Shiho and grinned down at her. Reaching a hand upwards, he twirled a strand of her long dark hair in his finger. Much to his dismay, she didn't even bat an eye at his advance.

"Nakara-chan, right?" he spoke. "Instead of this creepy Battle Royale shit, why don't we have-."

Before he could speak further, he was pulled away from Shiho. The man that looked like yakuza had grabbed the boy and held him off the ground. Shiho's mouth widened slightly at watching the boy struggle mid-air but didn't say anything.

"Girl."

"Hm?"

The yakuza tossed the boy aside, and walked towards Shiho.

"H-Hey! Calm down!"

It was Renji yelling from the ground. The people that were sat down have now started to stand up one by one, for starters the boy that just got tossed were now being helped up by his friends.

Shiho was grabbed forcefully and the man began to pull her into the corridor around the back. Everyone stared in disbelief, but no one wanted to beckon with the man's raw strength that he had just displayed earlier.

They disappeared together around the corner, and everyone strained their ears for any sounds to indicate what was happening to the poor girl. But instead of screams, they heard a single loud thud. In a matter of seconds, Shiho returned into the room looking intact and not a hair out of place.

"Okay…" she returned to her earlier position next to Gantz. "As I was saying, this is Gantz and we gotta kill whatever… or whomever? Yeah, whomever that shows up on the screen later in a bit after the music stops playing."

What she was saying made no sense at all, but no one spoke back. They were more interested on how she managed to free herself and why in the world she was acting as if nothing had happened. Some of the men walked to the corridor to see what had happened to the yakuza man.

Though curious to how a thin little girl managed to free herself from such a large man, Nishi didn't want to stand up and go see with the other men like Ichiro had. He just sat there and waited for whatever that was supposed to happen. Perhaps the 'music' she had mentioned would start playing soon.

Ichiro returned into the room before the others looking a little pale, he walked back over to where Nishi was and sat down.

"Dude, Nishi," he whispered so that Shiho wouldn't hear. "That guy just now… he was lying on the ground and clutching onto his stomach… I think she beat him down…"

"… Okay."

"Aren't you surprised?"

"Well why else would she be out here if she hadn't gotten free from that guy?"

"Huh?"

"Never mind."

Suddenly the room was resounding with a familiar tune. The music came from sphere, and it was a song that everyone recognized from their primary school days. For such a mundane song that every single person in Japan would have known, it now sounded ominous hearing it from this so called Gantz.

Shiho hummed along to the tune with a smile on her face.

"_Ich! Ni! San!"_

"Sweet," she said after the song ended. She tapped her knuckles against the sphere. "Open up, Gantz."

Gantz opened up on three sides, with two rows of what looked to be weapons and the last side at the back with a batch of cases.

"Suits on the back and guns left and right," Shiho pointed. "You'll need those to kill the aliens."

Now everyone had returned into the room after hearing the song, and each looked at one another unsurely. The first to act were the young adults that reached for the guns excitedly. Everyone else began to gather around the guns and began to pick them up to examine.

As more people began to surround Gantz, the screen flickered slightly before changing into what looked like a character profile of a video game. There was a picture of what looked like a Kappa, and beside it a list of useless information.

"What's that supposed to be?"

"Isn't that just a Kappa?"

"A what?"

"That's the thing we got to kill," Shiho spoke up, taking a brief glance at the screen. "_Koepa_?"

Her accent was really ridiculous. Everyone thought it was hilarious, but no one laughed or so much as said anything.

"Well, forget the _Koepa_, you guys better get ready."

Shiho saw that no one had bothered with their cases yet and sighed. She grabbed a pistol for the holster around her leg but stepped back after that. Nishi noticed that she had another weapon attached to her hip, it looked to be a hilt of a sword without the blade. He continued to stare at it as he made his way around everyone to get his suitcase. He realized how much more experienced Shiho must have been with Gantz. It was his first time here, but for her, it could have been her hundredth time for all they knew.

"Uh- Nakara-san?"

Ichiro had followed Nishi and picked up his case as well, and he was now approaching Shiho with the case in hand. Nishi stared at the case in his hand wordlessly then walked away from the people to find some place to change.

"Yeah?"

"We just put this on, right?" Ichiro pulled the black suit up.

Taking a look at Ichiro who had his suit in hand, she let out a large grin. She looked behind Ichiro, at Nishi who also had his suit out of the case and her grin grew even wider.

"Oh! I like you two!" she grinned, giving the two boys pats on their heads. "You actually listened to me!"

Ichiro blushed bright red immediately and began chuckling in a flamboyant kind of way. Nishi on the other hand was completely taken back by her gesture; all he could manage was to look down to hide his face from the glowering they're receiving from a majority of the men in the room.

"Learn from these guys, you fools," she directed the remark to the schoolgirls. "We're going to be killing the _Koepa_ and if you want any chance of survival you'll put those suits on."

The girls laughed again, perhaps it was just her accent, but it was obvious they had no intention of changing or even moving from where they sat.

"Right, whatever then. Good luck out there," she rolled her eyes. "Oh wow! More of you have suited up!"

As she turned around, her eyes immediately lit up when she saw that more have suited up. Majority of the men have followed Nishi and Ichiro's example and have put their suit on and grabbed a pistol (all except for the yakuza who had just stumbled out). The males looked content with themselves after being praised by Shiho, and this only made the remaining women even more bitter and unwilling to follow Shiho's instructions. All but one lady, she had introduced herself earlier as Yoko, and Nishi thought she must have been more intelligent than the rest.

Needless to say, their cooperation pleased Shiho greatly.

"Awesome!" she gave them a thumbs up. "Maybe more of you will come back this time!"

"Excuse me?" Yoko asked. "Do people not coming back?"

"Well, it'd be weird if they did," Shiho shrugged. "I've played over ten rounds, and not once has anyone come back with me."

She may have said it so nonchalantly, but everyone in the room grew alarmed. If that were indeed true then that meant the chances of any of them coming back were really slim. Even though Shiho was doing her best to prep them up now, there was no saying what's going to happen out there.

"B-But, you can save us!" Renji said. "Right? You've cleared so many rounds, so you can save us!"

"… I can't afford to do that," she shrugged lightly. "Sorry."

"…"

No one spoke to her after that. No one knew how to react to her anymore. The chattering from before soon came back, but no one heard from the thick accented girl anymore. She just stood in a corner, far away from everyone else, and waited. Nishi and Ichiro didn't stand far from her, as they felt safer when near her. Though he had no idea why Shiho said she wouldn't help them, he felt strangely drawn to her either way. She didn't seem like the type to abandon people when the situation demanded for it.

"Oh shit!"

"What the hell is going on?"

The schoolgirls began to squeal when one of their heads began disappearing. Everyone stopped speaking but instead they began to panic. The ones who ignored Shiho's instructions from earlier ran for their cases with a forlorn hope that they would make it in time. But they didn't soon they too started disappearing.

"It's starting," Shiho gripped the hilt on her waist. "Hey Sato, grab a gun for yourself and Tanaka. Trust me, you'll need them."

The remaining girl, Sato just managed to reach for two pistols before she too vanished. Shiho walked over to where the girl just was and sighed.

"Oh, those won't help much… whatever," she shrugged off with a little smile. "Hey kid, take the shotguns, okay? Those little pistols are practically useless and the lag is crazy."

Nishi wasn't positive if she was speaking to him or Ichiro, but either way he grabbed a shotgun like she instructed. The gun definitely felt real in his hands, not some cheap plastic replica but also not one of those impressive six chamber barrel shotguns that hunters used on their prey.

"Are these real guns?" Ichiro asked.

"What d'ya think?"

"… Yes?"

"Correct!" she giggled. "You can blast a man's head straight off with one of those!"

There was a playful tone to her voice. Nishi couldn't quite understand why she acted the way she did. He was both intrigued and worried by her whimsical attitude and approach to everything.

"Oh… ha-ha, cool…" Ichiro fiddled with the triggers with a sheepish smile. "So have you been- Whoa!"

The first two inches of Shiho's scalp was gone, and the rest was vanishing at an alarming pace.

"It's my turn!" she gave the boys a cute wink. "See you two there!"

With that said, Shiho's head vanished completely, and soon her whole body. After her, the rest began following one by one.

Nishi was the last left in the room. Ichiro had gone teary slightly when it was his turn; he had felt like laughing then, but now being the last one left he felt rather afraid too.

'_Deep breaths… Deep breaths…'_

* * *

**Wrote a draft for this story ages ago when I was on a school trip, only just managed to type it up and edit it around. **

**By the way, I imagine Nishi to be somewhat afraid and hopeless to begin with (no one starts off as awesome gantz veteran, right?), but he'll get better.**

**Reviews would be great!**


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